What Can Fix Our Country?

My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world. John 18:36

I’ve been asked a couple times lately if I thought we were in the end times. It has been quite a year. We’ve gone from sheltering in place to protesting and rioting in the streets over racial inequality. Both of those issues have driven a deep divide between us. I know good people who think wearing masks is necessary and I know good people who think it’s utterly ridiculous. I know good people who disagree sharply on the race issue, one side supporting the police and one side supporting black lives.

I’ve even waded into the fray myself. A couple weeks ago, I published a post entitled “Am I Racist?” I won’t expound that here, except to say that blog is still generating really ugly comments. Prior to that blog, I’d rarely gotten much negative feedback. As that particular topic has moved beyond my circle of acquaintances though, the gloves have come off and there are those who aren’t afraid to tell me what a @#!*& idiot I am. Is the world getting darker?

I’d bet that people for the last 2,000 years have thought that it couldn’t get any worse and that the end must be near. I personally don’t spend a lot of time thinking about that. I just wonder what my purpose is in all of it. God, what should I do? What is your will for me?

It’s tempting to turn to politics. Perhaps a good leader or more laws can get us out of this mess. Whether you like our president or not – again, I know good people who hate him and good people who love him – you must admit that politics is another deeply divisive issue. A tremendous amount of hateful vitriol has been spewed by those who disagree with each other in this arena.

Today’s passage though, indicates that for Christians, politics isn’t our savior. I’m not suggesting that Christians can’t be involved in politics. I’m just saying that Jesus didn’t try to change the world through political power. When questioned about being a king, Jesus responded that he didn’t come to build an earthly kingdom. He came to bring the kingdom of heaven to one individual at a time. That’s how his kingdom grows, his love and truth passing from one person, into the next.

That is what I think God wants me to do. That is what God wants his church to do. Again, I’m not saying we cannot be involved in politics. I’m just saying that as Christians, our hope isn’t in political power. As followers of Christ, we change our individual corner of the world when we follow his example in loving those around us as he loved us. We don’t have to rely on politicians to fix the world for us. We’re not responsible for that. We change the world one neighbor at a time as we follow Christ.